Vox admissions article

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No asshole it’s that’s not everything isn’t about a stupid test and maybe we value other important things in life and also we were feed the idea that it measures intelligence, so the Why prep for something that is intelligence based. Not every community is obsessed with status.

Of course not everything is about a test. But, a significant portion of college admissions *is* about the SAT/ACT. If you, or the black community, value other things in life, go for it. But that comes at a cost.

The more you post, though, the more I come to believe that your "thoughts" about the black community are nonsense, and you're just not very bright. And that is the most charitable thing I can say about you.

DP: Wow, your interpretation of her/his post is wildly off the mark. Actually she is pointing to something that is well-supported by research--not just in the black community, but more generally in the US. We tend towards a fixed mindset about intelligence/intelligence tests and SATs are billed as a test of intelligence. Asian communities tend towards an effort-based approach to tests. She was pointing out that this was such an ingrained part of the culture (which it was in my middle class white upbringing too) that she didn't even realize you could practice for it. She pointed to how she changed when she figured out that she could study for the MCAT. Yes, the fixed mindset has limitations, but it was a cultural pattern that has shaped a lot of practices in US community--there isn't a culture of test prep. Sure, now that so many people are "prepping" it has grown, but it's a reluctant acceptance--because we have a world-class university system that wasn't based on test prep. And since many elite colleges are responding to the massive test prep for a test that doesn't predict much by becoming test optional, she's not alone in her views.

This is exactly true.
-psych faculty member at a university who does admissions and also has studied IQ/g etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No asshole it’s that’s not everything isn’t about a stupid test and maybe we value other important things in life and also we were feed the idea that it measures intelligence, so the Why prep for something that is intelligence based. Not every community is obsessed with status.

Of course not everything is about a test. But, a significant portion of college admissions *is* about the SAT/ACT. If you, or the black community, value other things in life, go for it. But that comes at a cost.

The more you post, though, the more I come to believe that your "thoughts" about the black community are nonsense, and you're just not very bright. And that is the most charitable thing I can say about you.

DP: Wow, your interpretation of her/his post is wildly off the mark. Actually she is pointing to something that is well-supported by research--not just in the black community, but more generally in the US. We tend towards a fixed mindset about intelligence/intelligence tests and SATs are billed as a test of intelligence. Asian communities tend towards an effort-based approach to tests. She was pointing out that this was such an ingrained part of the culture (which it was in my middle class white upbringing too) that she didn't even realize you could practice for it. She pointed to how she changed when she figured out that she could study for the MCAT. Yes, the fixed mindset has limitations, but it was a cultural pattern that has shaped a lot of practices in US community--there isn't a culture of test prep. Sure, now that so many people are "prepping" it has grown, but it's a reluctant acceptance--because we have a world-class university system that wasn't based on test prep. And since many elite colleges are responding to the massive test prep for a test that doesn't predict much by becoming test optional, she's not alone in her views.

NP. Yes, the original PP was completely clear and forthright, the PP above is willfully twisting her points, and insulting. But there's a lot invested in this, of course there are communities that want the tests to have an outsized importance. That doesn't have to break down along race lines, anyone who has discovered that these tests are beatable, is going to beat them, and then claim the results are a measure of innate intelligence and should be the decider.

No one's claiming that. But, if it is common knowledge that (i) the tests are "beatable" and (ii) have a significant impact on college admissions, and a PP, (or, in her telling, and entire community) decided to ignore that fact because other things in life are more important, then I'm not terribly inclined to give two hoots when college admissions for that community are "inferior" to those of other communities.

I'm the PP who posted about med school. You make an interesting point and I think about this alot with board scores. On one hand, you can have a system (which we currently have) that values incredibly high test scores and minute memorization of biochemical pathways. In order to achieve this score (which I think is achievable for anyone in med school) you need to devote your LIFE to the test. This means that you are studying for classes and this test nonstop- no family interactions, no holidays, no real breaks- nothing. Now, if for example you are a mother in medical school, you may not put such a high premium on this test because you want to hang out with your kids and husband. There are no studies that show that this one test makes you a better doctor- but it is incentivized to try to reach a top score by communities that value the objectivity of the test. Honestly, I would rather have the doctor that performed well on the test and knew her stuff but was also a mom and developed interpersonal skills, life experiences and someone you could relate to. Again the idea is, do these tests actually show you who will succeed in life? Because life is not all about a test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory about the AA SAT scores. I’m a black female who went into a test heavy field (medicine) later in life, my family was pretty well off. The biggest thing I realized is the black community does not value these tests period. For example, we don’t really practice for the sat in my community or see it as something you can practice for. You kind of just take it and move on... we value other things in life. So when I went to take my McAT and was researching it, I can to find out that you can practice for these tests! I know it sounds dumb but literally I just thought it was a measure of intelligence that you couldn’t prep for.. Many of the Asian kids learned to drill for standardized tests at a young age, so of course they knew how to take the tests or tests. Simply put, the black community does not value these tests in the same way. At least in my community, we valued church and community. One should def look into Nigerian test scores as they are black but def value tests more as a community. Anyway, my husband and I will likely be UMC and have UMC kids but again we don’t value drilling SAT tests and such, we haven’t decided yet how we will handle this, as we also don’t see the huge point of drilling for tests at a young age, but I guess that would reproduce the chart above.

I was reading through this thread, wondering why no one was addressing cultural differences as a factor. This seems to me to be the most obvious answer. It is something that can be changed, but it does seem to be rather intractable. As a white person with Asian friends, I'm in a similar position -- I see what they're doing sending their kids to Kumon several times a week, etc., but I really would rather my dc be doing other things with their time. If you think of what the colleges are doing as adjusting for cultural differences between groups, the admissions standards become much more reasonable/rational. To me, the problem is not just that they are looking holistically at applicants and adjusting for background/cultural differences, but rather trying to socially engineer admissions with a preset view of what a "fair" admissions profile looks like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory about the AA SAT scores. I’m a black female who went into a test heavy field (medicine) later in life, my family was pretty well off. The biggest thing I realized is the black community does not value these tests period. For example, we don’t really practice for the sat in my community or see it as something you can practice for. You kind of just take it and move on... we value other things in life. So when I went to take my McAT and was researching it, I can to find out that you can practice for these tests! I know it sounds dumb but literally I just thought it was a measure of intelligence that you couldn’t prep for.. Many of the Asian kids learned to drill for standardized tests at a young age, so of course they knew how to take the tests or tests. Simply put, the black community does not value these tests in the same way. At least in my community, we valued church and community. One should def look into Nigerian test scores as they are black but def value tests more as a community. Anyway, my husband and I will likely be UMC and have UMC kids but again we don’t value drilling SAT tests and such, we haven’t decided yet how we will handle this, as we also don’t see the huge point of drilling for tests at a young age, but I guess that would reproduce the chart above.

I was reading through this thread, wondering why no one was addressing cultural differences as a factor. This seems to me to be the most obvious answer. It is something that can be changed, but it does seem to be rather intractable. As a white person with Asian friends, I'm in a similar position -- I see what they're doing sending their kids to Kumon several times a week, etc., but I really would rather my dc be doing other things with their time. If you think of what the colleges are doing as adjusting for cultural differences between groups, the admissions standards become much more reasonable/rational. To me, the problem is not just that they are looking holistically at applicants and adjusting for background/cultural differences, but rather trying to socially engineer admissions with a preset view of what a "fair" admissions profile looks like.

The only problem with this is that research shows that blacks actually use test prep more than whites and Hispanics, both of which are groups which outscore them, whites significantly so. The only group which uses test prep more than blacks in the US are Asians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a fair amount of self-serving platitudes in there, along with some insights that can be boiled down to:

Early Decision gives standard private school kids a significant edge. And these kids already have a big edge, one that is exacerbated by their generally higher test scores.

White men are advantaged in SLAC admissions, particularly athletes recruited for sports that nobody really cares about.

Rankings are junk science and yet remain influential.

Highly selective admissions is kind of a crap shoot for the most qualified candidates.

Saved you a click and 15 minutes.

I would take issue with one thing: female athletes are the most advantaged of all. Thanks to title IX they are recruited for many sports that few care about.

Like?

College softball is the 3rd highest watched collegiate sport after football and men’s basketball. They also surpass most MLB games on any given night. Woman’s basketball and lacrosse are also popular. Personally I would watch woman’s VB and softball before all college sports but March Madness and a few bowl games.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/82C2DE18-4D1A-11E7-8F25-FFB46009C8A4

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory about the AA SAT scores. I’m a black female who went into a test heavy field (medicine) later in life, my family was pretty well off. The biggest thing I realized is the black community does not value these tests period. For example, we don’t really practice for the sat in my community or see it as something you can practice for. You kind of just take it and move on... we value other things in life. So when I went to take my McAT and was researching it, I can to find out that you can practice for these tests! I know it sounds dumb but literally I just thought it was a measure of intelligence that you couldn’t prep for.. Many of the Asian kids learned to drill for standardized tests at a young age, so of course they knew how to take the tests or tests. Simply put, the black community does not value these tests in the same way. At least in my community, we valued church and community. One should def look into Nigerian test scores as they are black but def value tests more as a community. Anyway, my husband and I will likely be UMC and have UMC kids but again we don’t value drilling SAT tests and such, we haven’t decided yet how we will handle this, as we also don’t see the huge point of drilling for tests at a young age, but I guess that would reproduce the chart above.

I was reading through this thread, wondering why no one was addressing cultural differences as a factor. This seems to me to be the most obvious answer. It is something that can be changed, but it does seem to be rather intractable. As a white person with Asian friends, I'm in a similar position -- I see what they're doing sending their kids to Kumon several times a week, etc., but I really would rather my dc be doing other things with their time. If you think of what the colleges are doing as adjusting for cultural differences between groups, the admissions standards become much more reasonable/rational. To me, the problem is not just that they are looking holistically at applicants and adjusting for background/cultural differences, but rather trying to socially engineer admissions with a preset view of what a "fair" admissions profile looks like.

The only problem with this is that research shows that blacks actually use test prep more than whites and Hispanics, both of which are groups which outscore them, whites significantly so. The only group which uses test prep more than blacks in the US are Asians.

Source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory about the AA SAT scores. I’m a black female who went into a test heavy field (medicine) later in life, my family was pretty well off. The biggest thing I realized is the black community does not value these tests period. For example, we don’t really practice for the sat in my community or see it as something you can practice for. You kind of just take it and move on... we value other things in life. So when I went to take my McAT and was researching it, I can to find out that you can practice for these tests! I know it sounds dumb but literally I just thought it was a measure of intelligence that you couldn’t prep for.. Many of the Asian kids learned to drill for standardized tests at a young age, so of course they knew how to take the tests or tests. Simply put, the black community does not value these tests in the same way. At least in my community, we valued church and community. One should def look into Nigerian test scores as they are black but def value tests more as a community. Anyway, my husband and I will likely be UMC and have UMC kids but again we don’t value drilling SAT tests and such, we haven’t decided yet how we will handle this, as we also don’t see the huge point of drilling for tests at a young age, but I guess that would reproduce the chart above.

I was reading through this thread, wondering why no one was addressing cultural differences as a factor. This seems to me to be the most obvious answer. It is something that can be changed, but it does seem to be rather intractable. As a white person with Asian friends, I'm in a similar position -- I see what they're doing sending their kids to Kumon several times a week, etc., but I really would rather my dc be doing other things with their time. If you think of what the colleges are doing as adjusting for cultural differences between groups, the admissions standards become much more reasonable/rational. To me, the problem is not just that they are looking holistically at applicants and adjusting for background/cultural differences, but rather trying to socially engineer admissions with a preset view of what a "fair" admissions profile looks like.

The only problem with this is that research shows that blacks actually use test prep more than whites and Hispanics, both of which are groups which outscore them, whites significantly so. The only group which uses test prep more than blacks in the US are Asians.

Source?

Same Med school PP, this is a great thread for me because I have been thinking about this. I did SAT prep as well but looking back (and learning how to prep for MCAT) I didn't DO prep at the level that some cultures do prep. I just thought I went to class, did some of the basic homework and that was it. I was "doing" prep class. Now for MCAT- I went all in based on what I learned. Honestly, you don't need a prep "class" it is just BRUTE WORK. I did 10 full length practice tests (8 hours each) with the exact clothes I would wear for the test w/ exact bathroom breaks. Then I would grind out problems after problems all day. I learned this literally via the internet by learning from other communities who value tests. Otherwise, I would have just "done" kaplan prep and called it a day. No- this is next level stuff you have to do to pass these tests with high percentiles and I had no idea. My mom, who is a higher earner, didn't either. We had no clue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory about the AA SAT scores. I’m a black female who went into a test heavy field (medicine) later in life, my family was pretty well off. The biggest thing I realized is the black community does not value these tests period. For example, we don’t really practice for the sat in my community or see it as something you can practice for. You kind of just take it and move on... we value other things in life. So when I went to take my McAT and was researching it, I can to find out that you can practice for these tests! I know it sounds dumb but literally I just thought it was a measure of intelligence that you couldn’t prep for.. Many of the Asian kids learned to drill for standardized tests at a young age, so of course they knew how to take the tests or tests. Simply put, the black community does not value these tests in the same way. At least in my community, we valued church and community. One should def look into Nigerian test scores as they are black but def value tests more as a community. Anyway, my husband and I will likely be UMC and have UMC kids but again we don’t value drilling SAT tests and such, we haven’t decided yet how we will handle this, as we also don’t see the huge point of drilling for tests at a young age, but I guess that would reproduce the chart above.

I was reading through this thread, wondering why no one was addressing cultural differences as a factor. This seems to me to be the most obvious answer. It is something that can be changed, but it does seem to be rather intractable. As a white person with Asian friends, I'm in a similar position -- I see what they're doing sending their kids to Kumon several times a week, etc., but I really would rather my dc be doing other things with their time. If you think of what the colleges are doing as adjusting for cultural differences between groups, the admissions standards become much more reasonable/rational. To me, the problem is not just that they are looking holistically at applicants and adjusting for background/cultural differences, but rather trying to socially engineer admissions with a preset view of what a "fair" admissions profile looks like.

The only problem with this is that research shows that blacks actually use test prep more than whites and Hispanics, both of which are groups which outscore them, whites significantly so. The only group which uses test prep more than blacks in the US are Asians.

Source?

https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/salon/files/2011/11/Racial_differences_SFJ_89_2_Alon-final.pdf : " One of the noteworthy findings in the BCR study is the racial and ethnic differences in the use of test preparation: blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites from comparable backgrounds to utilize test preparation. The black-white gap is especially pronounced in the use of high school courses, private courses and private tutors. The Hispanic-white gap is more modest, and is limited to the use of private tutors. "

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2012.01326.x : "Black non?Hispanic students are more likely to participate in test prep, and there are also significant interaction effects of race and grade level on prep, with black 11th graders having the highest predicted probability of prep"

https://www.jefftk.com/buchmann2010.pdf : "In contrast to predictions regarding social class inequalities, we suspect that racial/ethnic minorities will be as likely as, or even more likely than, whites to utilize test preparation"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vox is a regressive propaganda company.
It's like listening to MTV on advice for college.

It's a first-person piece written by a former admissions dean at Wesleyan. The info is solid even if you don't like the channel he published it on.

Is Wesleyan a top school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If that is all you got from this piece - which also slams private schools, ED, middle to upper middle class parents who get their kids involved in all sorts of activities with an eye toward college admission ...

Yes, let's attack striver so-called Tiger parents ... and not the real problem: literally 2/3s of American parents let their kids sit on their *** all day, take dummy classes, obsess over pointless sports, never read, never pursue any outside academic development or community engagement, and finish high school reading, writing and doing math at 6th-9th grade level.

...hence about 50% of kids end up failing out of college and their career prospects are dismal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If that is all you got from this piece - which also slams private schools, ED, middle to upper middle class parents who get their kids involved in all sorts of activities with an eye toward college admission ...

Yes, let's attack striver so-called Tiger parents ... and not the real problem: literally 2/3s of American parents let their kids sit on their *** all day, take dummy classes, obsess over pointless sports, never read, never pursue any outside academic development or community engagement, and finish high school reading, writing and doing math at 6th-9th grade level.

...hence about 50% of kids end up failing out of college and their career prospects are dismal.

I think there is a balance. The kids who only practice tests and prepare for college their whole lives also have dismal career prospects as well because career, and life in general, involves other skills. Kids who do not pursue intellectual opportunities, on the other hand, are also limited. I think the sweet spot is the smart kid, who does well, yet has other interests in addition to academic interests. This is the reason I abhor the overemphasis on grades and test scores. There truly is more to life. I think that is part of what holistic admissions is intended too capture--at least I hope so because I have a junior with great test scores and very good grades (but not perfect), who has some really interesting side pursuits and is a very deep thinker (way more than I was at her age). I think she would make a great addition to an intellectual college community (not Ivy necessarily because I don't care about status).

[Anonymous]

There's no "balance" in the coverage. The crazy Tiger parents are perhaps 0.10% of American parents, yet garner over 90% of the high school and college admissions clickbait reporting. Far more detrimental to communities, families and the future of this nation are the 66% of parents who are raising unmotivated lazy dummies.

[Anonymous]

"whole lives" is hyperbolic and attempts to act like overachieving kids can't be perfectly happy doing what they do in the moment (they often are) or that they won't look back and appreciative it (they almost always do). Rockstar Eddie Van Halen's mother forced him to go to piano practice, which he hated ... decades later he thanks his mum for it. Eddie's is a virtuoso on the guitar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's no "balance" in the coverage. The crazy Tiger parents are perhaps 0.10% of American parents, yet garner over 90% of the high school and college admissions clickbait reporting. Far more detrimental to communities, families and the future of this nation are the 66% of parents who are raising unmotivated lazy dummies.

Where are you getting .10%. I've been on college tours and seen these parents (you know, the ones that push the other people's kids out of the way to be up front instead of hanging back and letting the kids be in the front). I've seen them on here -- the world is over my kid has a B parents or the parents obsessing over whether an A- in PE will doom their child's chances at Harvard. GO on Quora, there are a million posts about how my kid (or I) has a 4.5 and a 1600, yet Harvard did not admit him/her. These parents are everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Where am I getting 0.10%? I made it up. But the country is far bigger than Sidwell and TJ high; most high schools don't even have 1 tiger kid. Most high schools graduate idiots have zero study skills, no self-control, can't finish a 300 page book if you paid them, can't write a coherent paragraph. THAT'S the average American teen.